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Updated: May 31, 2025
It was the hill near which he had waited to meet Farfrae, almost two years earlier, to tell him of the serious illness of his wife Lucetta. The place was unchanged; the same larches sighed the same notes; but Farfrae had another wife and, as Henchard knew, a better one. He only hoped that Elizabeth-Jane had obtained a better home than had been hers at the former time.
As she looked at Farfrae from the back of the settle she decided that his statements showed him to be no less thoughtful than his fascinating melodies revealed him to be cordial and impassioned. She admired the serious light in which he looked at serious things. He had seen no jest in ambiguities and roguery, as the Casterbridge toss-pots had done; and rightly not there was none.
Henchard could almost feel this view of things in course of passage through Farfrae's mind. "I have to go to Mellstock," said Farfrae coldly, as he loosened his reins to move on. "But," implored Henchard, "the matter is more serious than your business at Mellstock. It is your wife! She is ill. I can tell you particulars as we go along."
Just at this time Farfrae, who had been to Henchard's house to look for him, came out of the back gate, and saw something white fluttering in the morning gloom, which he soon perceived to be part of Abel's shirt that showed below his waistcoat. "For maircy's sake, what object's this?" said Farfrae, following Abel into the yard, Henchard being some way in the rear by this time. "Ye see, Mr.
"I said to myself, ay, a hundred times, when I tried to get a peep at her unknown to herself 'Depend upon it, 'tis best that I should live on quiet for a few days like this till something turns up for the better. I now know you are all right, and what can I wish for more?" "Well, Captain Newson, I will be glad to see ye here every day now, since it can do no harm," said Farfrae.
They stood in silence while he ran into the cottage; returning in a moment with a crumpled scrap of paper. On it there was pencilled as follows: "That Elizabeth-Jane Farfrae be not told of my death, or made to grieve on account of me. "& that I be not bury'd in consecrated ground. "& that no sexton be asked to toll the bell. "& that nobody is wished to see my dead body.
"I was going to ask you," said Henchard, "about a packet that I may possibly have left in my old safe in the dining-room." He added particulars. "If so, it is there now," said Farfrae. "I have never opened the safe at all as yet; for I keep ma papers at the bank, to sleep easy o' nights." "It was not of much consequence to me," said Henchard. "But I'll call for it this evening, if you don't mind?"
By degrees Henchard became aware that the measure was trod by some one who out-Farfraed Farfrae in saltatory intenseness. This was strange, and it was stranger to find that the eclipsing personage was Elizabeth-Jane's partner. The first time that Henchard saw him he was sweeping grandly round, his head quivering and low down, his legs in the form of an X and his back towards the door.
Farfrae was Mayor the two-hundredth odd of a series forming an elective dynasty dating back to the days of Charles I and the fair Lucetta was the courted of the town....But, Ah! the worm i' the bud Henchard; what he could tell! The bell-ringing and the band-playing, loud as Tamerlane's trumpet, goaded the downfallen Henchard indescribably: the ousting now seemed to him to be complete.
"Yes, she was wise, she was wise in her generation!" said Henchard to himself when he heard of this one day on his way to Farfrae's hay-barn. He thought it over as he wimbled his bonds, and the piece of news acted as a reviviscent breath to that old view of his of Donald Farfrae as his triumphant rival who rode rough-shod over him.
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